defense secretary leon panetta has said he believes there are as many as seven american hostages involved in this incident. it looks like the u.s. government, the british, japanese, norwegians, basically, are letting this algerian operation play out. you have to, you know, really remember, this is sovereign algerian territory. it's something the algerians take very seriously. they haven't asked, as far as we know, for any u.s. help. they want to handle it. this is a classic hostage situation. the algerians have moved in, surrounded it, nobody in, nobody out, and they are going to make the attempt to deal with it. that's the basic u.s. understanding. but, you know, beyond that it's very difficult to understand what's going on. one thing that has happened is the u.s. has sent a satellite over the region. it has some satellite imagery of this area and we have just been told by a u.s. official, an unarmed predator drone flying at a much lower altitude getting much better fidelity, detail on the site also has flown over the bp site trying to get a lay down of what it all looks like. >> forgive